After Katrina

Sunday morning, I had no power. I had stayed at C's house on the beach, waiting for something awful to come slamming into the house. But it was Maggie. Maggie, a neighbor from down the beach, came driving up.. crazy because 1) she had no power and 2) she had no coffee. We went to my backyard, and tried to boil water on the BBQ grill. C kept calling and saying, "You're not doing it right." Maggie couldn't take it any longer, so we jumped into her car, and drove carefully down Hollywood Blvd, around Royal Palms, around large Ficus trees, in search of caffeine. We saw people pounding on the door of Burger King, hunting for the same thing....

We drove over to Annie's house, where Annie had a gas stove, and a large generator going. Annie made us 2 pots of coffee, filled our thermos's and off we went back to C's place. I made us lunch and then a pitcher of Cosmos.

That night, we needed dinner. We drove down to Downtown Hollywood, in search of meat! Lo and behold, we found one of the restaurants open, and crowded, but Maggie managed to grab a table outside with a large umbrella. We sat out there, ordered a bottle of wine, ordered a large dinner, and preceded to laugh about the whole day.

Our steaks arrived, our food was fantastic, and cooked to perfection. While sitting there enjoying our food, not talking, but making hungry noises, the sky opened up and began to storm... Poured rain and thunder all around us. Waitress stood at the door of the restaurant, yelling at us, "Are you sure you don't want to come inside?" Now... logically, I'm thinking... If I move my food from one table to another, my food is going to be flooded. Everything will become soaked, and inedible. And of course, Maggie is thinking in her drunken way, "Why move, we have the best seat in the house?" So there we sat, the two of us, under a large umbrella, while it pours all around us. Tree limbs are snapping. People are running. You can't see the building across the street, but there we were, enjoying the best tasting Ribeye steaks smothered in garlic and onions.

Hurricane Katrina was a fun event for us here.. It brought Maggie and I closer.

Another Year, Another Sad State Of Affairs

Didn't you just love Shrub's speechwriter? I thought he was fantastic. Nothing will change mine, nor the rest of this world's opinion of our loser of a President, but you have to admit, the speech sounded convincing, promising, almost believable.

The next time I put my foot in my mouth, I'd like to hire that guy to write my speech and get me outta the mess I put myself into.

In fact, we should all have access to someone as polished and believable as the speechwriter that wrote the speech that Shrub gave last night, at Jackson Hall, in New Orleans.

Forget Shrub, I say we hire his speechwriter. "Here, here."